Politics

Mar 25, 2007

Echoes and analogies

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The Hindu, 25 March THE more I travel, read and study the history of peoples and societies, the more analogies I discover, and at the same time the warier I become of all analogies. History does not repeat itself exactly, but it is full of echoes. Some analogies are routinely abused, while… Read more

Mar 1, 2007

A blind eye to bigotry

Five years on, those behind the Gujarat anti-Muslim pogrom are still running the state The Guardian, 1 March Five years ago this week, across the Indian state of Gujarat, the stormtroopers of the Hindu right, decked in saffron sashes and armed with swords, tridents, sledgehammers and liquid gas cylinders, launched a pogrom against the local… Read more

Feb 25, 2007

Blurred at the edges

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The Hindu, 25 February A reference in my last column to Moses Maimonides as a “12th century Arab Jewish theologian” has perplexed some readers. An Arab and a Jew? Can such a hybrid exist? Like all ethnic designations, both terms are problematic, blurred at the edges. But in the case of Maimonides,… Read more

Feb 11, 2007

India’s tryst with the death penalty

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The Hindu, 11 February [Note: Muhammed Afzal has been sentenced to death by hanging for his alleged role in the attack on the Indian parliament on 13 December, 2001.] IN 1793, the French Convention was debating the fate of the deposed and imprisoned king, Louis XVI. Thomas Paine, an Englishman who had… Read more

Jan 28, 2007

Unreality TV

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The Hindu, 28 January ALL words can be cheapened by misuse, especially when they are misused by the powerful. The reality they refer to is disguised, rather than revealed. But what happens when the word in question is “reality” itself? On his visit to India, Gordon Brown, still the bookie’s favourite to… Read more

Jan 14, 2007

Behind the Iraq “surge”

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The Hindu, 14 January It beggars belief. After nearly four years of occupation, resulting in the deaths of 650,000 Iraqis, the US and its British lapdog have decided that the only remedy for the Iraq debacle is more of the same. Despite a clear-cut desire on the part of the majority of… Read more

Jan 13, 2007

Bribing your way to the front of the queue

The Guardian, 13 January After a long flight, I took my place in a slow moving but orderly queue waiting to pass through Indian immigration at Chennai airport. A middle-aged man with an attache case strode calmly past our ranks to insert himself at the front, blithely oblivious to the objections of those prepared to… Read more

Nov 5, 2006

Nightmare figures all too real

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The Hindu, 5 November Whenever scientific research produces results that are inconvenient to people in power, they seek to deny, discredit or downplay them. On October 12th, The Lancet, one of the medical world’s most respected journals, published a peer-reviewed study conducted by Johns Hopkins University’s School of Public Health, one of… Read more

Nov 1, 2006

Veiled threats

Red Pepper, November 2006 Open hostility to multi-culturalism used to be the preserve of the nationalist right, but since 9/11, it’s flooded the mainstream and bamboozled more than a few who proudly declare themselves liberals. In recent months, it’s been noisily blamed for homegrown terrorism and the alleged “self-segregation” of minority groups, damned as a… Read more

Oct 15, 2006

Starbucks goes to India

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The Hindu, 15 October STARBUCKS, the world’s largest coffee retailer, recently unveiled ambitious plans for expansion into major new markets, including Russia, Brazil, Egypt and, of course, India. By the end of 2007, the company will boast 20,000 outlets in 41 countries. Starbucks is, among other things, a symbol, a superstar performer… Read more